Turck Group has acquired Finland-based ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID company Vilant Systems to form a global full-solutions provider able to compete with a handful of UHF RFID companies offering turnkey solutions in Europe. With this acquisition, the firm reports, it can now offer a full solution consisting of hardware, software and integration to large global companies with sites on multiple continents, as well as to small companies that may not have adopted RFID due to the complexity of requiring multiple technology partners.

The company will operate under the name Turck Vilant Systems. Vilant's engineers and management will continue to work out of its existing office in Espoo, Finland, as well as its other three offices in Frankfurt, Germany; Bern, Switzerland; and Gothenburg, Sweden.

Turck's Oliver Merget

Turck and Vilant already have a history of partnering on several projects, including Vilant's railway and paper industry-based solutions. Turck has numerous customers of its hardware, including both high-frequency (HF) and UHF RFID readers and tags primarily used in the logistics and manufacturing markets, especially in automotive. The RFID technology is used for asset management, inventory and supply chain tracking, and for tracking work-in-progress.

The hardware company has found, however, that large customers, such as automotive firms, require RFID-based solutions that can be provided by a single business globally, across multiple manufacturing or supplier sites. "They need a complete solution with contact points around the word that can provide consultation with strong application knowledge," says Oliver Merget, Turck's VP of business unit automation systems.

By joining Vilant's software and middleware—and the engineers who develop it—with Turck's hardware, Merget says, "We can now offer a complete solution" for UHF RFID deployments. The combined offerings are similar to solutions provided by Turck Vilant's competitors, he notes, such as Kathrein and Harting RFID.

Turck Vilant will also be able to provide a single solution to the benefit of smaller companies, Merget reports. Those with 20 to 100 employees typically lack the resources required to hire multiple suppliers to build a solution. "For them," he states, "it's like watching a ping pong game between suppliers." Such back-and-forth requirements made RFID unrealistic without a provider of a single solution, Merget adds.